Enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography of therapeutically relevant aminoalcohols as their fluorescent 1-naphthyl isocyanate derivatives.

A method for determining the enantiomers of 10 therapeutically relevant aminoalcohols using HPLC and precolumn derivatization was developed. Naphthyl isocyanate reacted with racemic aminoalcohols to form urea derivatives which were separated isocratically on a cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) coated silica gel column, and detected fluorometrically in the lower ng mL(-1) range. The effluents can also be monitored at lower sensitivity, using an ultraviolet detector operated at 220 nm.